How to provide dynamic settings in an extension? Please help.

Hey Mark, you would use one of the settings field types that fits your need (radio, multi-select, etc.). You can use the Database class to fetch that information to populate the fields in the settings() method. As an example, this would represent a member group multi-select:

$query = $DB->query("SELECT group_id, group_title FROM exp_member_groups WHERE group_id NOT IN ('2', '3', '4')");

$groups = array();

foreach ($query->result as $row)
{
    $groups[$row['group_id']] = $row['group_title'];
}

$settings['member_groups'] = array('ms', $groups, '');

Hi Derek,

Thanks for that, will look into it a bit later on and see where I get to.

Best wishes,

Mark

No problem. After trying that out, in your extension’s method that fires, do this so you can see how the data is made available to you:

echo '<pre>';print_r($this->settings);echo'</pre>

<p>‘;exit;

Thanks, will try all that and see where I get to.

I hope not to have to come back again but may do if it doesn’t go as easily as I am hoping 😉

Best wishes,

Mark

Hi Derek,

Okay just getting around to starting to write the extension and already I’m a little confused. I have the extension installing and showing a settings page with the code that you showed above (reflected here again below) :

$query = $DB->query("SELECT group_id, group_title FROM exp_member_groups WHERE group_id NOT IN ('2', '3', '4')");

$groups = array();

foreach ($query->result as $row)
{
    $groups[$row['group_id']] = $row['group_title'];
}

$settings['member_groups'] = array('ms', $groups, '');

I have to say that I’m a little perplexed as to where the settings page is getting the Member Groups title from. Next to the multi-select field are shown those words but if I try to add in one of the examples from the documentation such as :

$settings['butter']    = "Quite Tasty";

all I get is the text field but without a title shown on the left of the field explaining what it’s for. How come the Member Groups example that you have provided has this text but the others from the documentation example don’t?

How do I get my own titles to appear?

Thanks.

Best wishes,

Mark

Also just noticed something else a little weird (well it seemed weird to me anyway 😉 ). I tried out this from the documentation too :

$settings['buttery']   = array('r', array('yes' => "yes", 'no' => "no"), 'no');

If I change the yes’s to some other word and also the no’s to some other word then I do get the radio buttons but they don’t have anything written next to them. I think I’m obviously missing something here so any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry about all of this, I was really hoping to get this on my own but just following the documentation got me a little lost I’m afraid :-(

Best wishes,

Mark

You need to have words in your extension’s language file for each key, Mark. :-D

You need to have words in your extension’s language file for each key, Mark. :-D

Now do I feel silly or what 😉

Although still the question has to be, how come the code that you showed for member groups has the words Member Groups appear next to it?

Thanks.

Best wishes,

Mark

It’s already defined in lang.admin.php.

It’s already defined in lang.admin.php.

Ah right so that gets added by default I see. Sorry just came across that in the documents. Found a couple of typos I think as well so will post them later on the the Bug Tracker if you want?

Best wishes,

Mark

Yep sounds fine, Mark, thank you.